Werner Schwab - Böcker

Foreword by Diana Damian MartinWerner Schwab’s final work, also known as a theatre-extinction comedy, is a brutal, irreverent and bizarrely comical piece about what happens when an emerging stage production is sabotaged by outsiders. Following a dispute with the cast, the director replaces all the actors with pensioners from a nearby home for the elderly. At first compliant and polite, the ‘forgotten and dispossessed’ gradually start to question the director’s authority, leading to a ‘coup d’état’ where the theatre’s cleaning lady is selected as the group’s leader. Not everybody survives the new order.Werner Schwab was only thirty-five years old when he was found dead in his room following a New Year’s Eve drinking spree in 1994. He was, at the time, the undisputed star of German speaking theatre who effortlessly rose to fame for his unique talent with language and his darkly humorous, confrontational narratives. In only four years, he completed fifteen plays with Dead at Last, At Last No More Air (Endlich tot, endlich keine luftmehr) being his last.

"The holy mothers are three ordinary women. Their lives are grotesque and their fantasies are lurid. In a world full of problems, what can anyone do but have a bit of fun? Erna, Grete and Mariedl watch the pope on TC then settle down to discussing Erna's dreadful son, Grete's dreadful daughter and Mariedl's unusual vocation. Why does Herrmann refuse to have intercourse? Why did Hannelore get herself gutted like a chicken and emigrate to Australia? And why doesn't Mariedl wear rubber gloves? The three women start dreaming of what life could be. If only one person's dream didn't have a way of turning into another person's nightmare. This horrifically funny masterpiece, with the German title Die Prosidentinnen, signalled the meteoric rise to fame of the young Austrian, Werner Schwab (1958-1993). "